The ever-present bat squeak of sexiness in Christopher Kane’s work is turned up wickedly in this resort collection. Seeing its deadpan gleefulness in real life is quite a sharp-intake-of-breath situation. How, you are forced to wonder, does someone come up with the geniusly simple idea of dropping a giant bow onto the hemline of a short, tailored shift? Or pop a pair of powder-puffs into the dangerously-draped neckline of a slinky petrol-blue jersey slip dress? And exactly what kind of mind thinks of cutting circles out of the knees and elbows of a black trouser suit, and then trimming them with marabou?
It may be hard to see all of it in the blurry lookbook, but take it from an eyewitness: This collection is packed with chic-funny-simple evening ideas that look like a joy to wear. Should you detect a ’50s/’80s post-punk New Wave-ish vibe coming off it, you’re not wrong.
Kane and his sister Tammy had their elliptical reasonings for ending up here. As ever, behind every brilliant Christopher Kane party-trick, there lies something darker. This time, the siblings had been watching All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the documentary about Nan Goldin that weaves her groundbreaking ’70s and ’80s photography into footage of her campaign of protest against the Sackler family’s sponsorship of major museums and galleries. (The Sacklers own Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company whose main drug is the opioid Oxycontin.) It struck them that the connection between the forces of super-wealth at one end of society, and the most deprived at the other were stingingly present—in the clothes.
It was the sight of the cocktail dresses, lingerie, and scrappy gowns worn by Goldin’s penniless junkie LGBTQ friends that resonated. “The reason they looked so amazing in their poverty is that they were wearing second-hand and discarded clothes thrown out by the wealthy—couture, designer clothes from the ’40s and ’50s. “For them, that fit with their childhood and teenage memories of seeing the deprivation of communities in the post-industrial Glaswegian conurbation they grew up amongst. “The poorest people are the best-dressed. We’ve always said that.”
It took them back to remembering the glamour of the neatly-dressed barmaids serving in Working Men’s Clubs in the mid-to-late ’80s—another source for the sexy synthetic fitted dresses they conspired on in this collection. The subversive references they use aren’t at all visible, of course. What Kane always does is to turn the brew of associations into relevant fashion. Sometimes there’s a clue in the name, though. He’s called a gold fan-pleated evening dress “The Gold Bullion.” Now, as it was in the New York of the ’80s, the rich are always with us.
